I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to medication delivery systems, and more particularly to cartridges and specially designed unit dose and multi-dose medication used for filling automated medication delivery systems.
II. Description of Prior Art
Medication in the form of vials, ampules and other containers is often packaged in boxes and drawers from which medical personnel can retrieve them as needed for a patient. Many such vials are intended for a single use and are referred to as unit dose medications. Other such vials may be used several times and are referred to as multi-dose medications. For example, these containers often hold liquid medication that is used in syringes for injections, and some might contain powders that can be rehydrated with water for oral consumption. The packaging of such medications in unit doses is advantageous for a variety of reasons. Individually sealed containers prevents spoilage of larger quantities of unused medication, and there is a substantially lesser risk of overdose due to the limited amount within the vials. Also, small containers of medication allow for longer storage of the medication for use over extended periods of time, and it helps to prevents medical care personnel from having to touch the medication before it is delivered to a patient. This is especially important in situations where the medical care personnel are handling numerous types of medication, and where patients may have a hypersensitivity to certain medications. Although most of the small containers used in pharmacies and hospitals contain liquid and powder forms of medication, a wide variety of medical items are similarly packaged, such as syringes and other consumable medical supplies. Because most of the containers referred to above are cylindrical in shape, the ensuing description will employ the word "vials" for all such similarly shaped containers. It should be understood, however, that use of the word "vials" is only for the sake of simplicity, and is not intended as a limitation on the invention as it will be described herein.
Because of their relatively nonuniform shape, especially at the tops and bottoms of the vials, automated delivery of vials has been an elusive goal. Automated medication dispensing devices have been developed for certain forms of medication, namely the dispensing of single pills from bulk containers, such as my prior invention represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,292,029, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. In that device, single pills are retrieved from a bulk container by a suction probe that is capable of traveling along three axes. The shape of the probe and the individual pills makes retrieval by suction quite reliable. In theory, it is possible to retrieve a single vial by suction, but only if the vial is oriented so that a flat portion of the vial, such as the lid, is substantially perpendicular to the suction probe. Therefore, a bulk container having multiple, unusually oriented unit dose vials would not be a viable container for such medication if retrieval of single vials is desired.
Another attempt to resolve the problems in retrieving unit dose medications has been made in another of my prior applications, Ser. No. 08/948,284. That invention deals primarily with the retrieval of unit dose "blister packs" containing pills. In that invention, a specially designed cartridge was developed which allows for alignment of the packages and retrieval by suction or other means within an automated medication delivery system. As will be appreciated herein, the present invention is similar in that a specially designed cartridge is employed to allow retrieval of vials within the same automated medication delivery system.
Consequently, there is a broad need for the automatic dispensing of single unit dose or multi-dose medication vials, especially in connection with automated devices such as my prior patent mentioned above. One means of allowing for such automated dispensing is to provide a cartridge which houses a plurality of vials which are oriented in a manner to facilitate retrieval by suction or other means, such as magnetic means. The cartridge should be readily alignable and attachable within an automated delivery system so as to allow retrieval of vials, preferably without modification to any existing suction probe unit and without any other major functional and structural changes to the delivery system. The cartridges should be relatively simple and inexpensive to manufacture by the medication supplier so that pre-filled cartridges may be provided to users of the automated delivery system. A bar code or other means of identifying the medication should be conveniently located on the cartridge so that the automated delivery system can correlate the particular medication type with a specific location within the automated delivery system.